


in these hands, all that remains

by sherlocksdaughter



Series: a moment of love [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: 3B scenes we'd like to see, Angst, Dancing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M, character introspection, mention of potential emotional abuse, season 3b
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 07:20:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17638301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sherlocksdaughter/pseuds/sherlocksdaughter
Summary: He looks across at Magnus and sees his slumped shoulders, his downcast eyes and beautiful, sad, distant expression. He sees Magnus’ empty hands which twitch minutely every now and then, and a slight smudge in his eyeliner which he can no longer magically keep immaculate.Magnus is mourning the loss of his magic. Alec is consumed with the guilt of leading him to it, purposefully or not. Stripped raw and hurting, they find comfort in each other.





	in these hands, all that remains

To Alec Lightwood, guilt was an intimate, life-long companion.

He knew it night and day, the way it seeped bone-deep and cruel and hot, tightening in his throat and in his gut and stinging against his fists when he punched the training dummy just a little too hard. 

His parents were excellent at instilling it in him – the way his mother would stroke his hair in the same moment she informed him that his hesitance at finding a parabatai was bringing his family embarrassment. The way his father would chuckle jovially in front of his teachers when he would fumble in drawing a rune, but tug him to the side afterwards to scold him – eyes annoyed but still somehow distant as they raked disapprovingly over Alec’s form. Alec felt their disappointment like hot bile at the centre of his chest, like needle-pricks all over his skin.

He felt it even with Izzy, whose face would fall along with Alec’s stomach when he refused her offers to draw, to play, to run around or build something.  
“I can’t.” He’d say. “I shouldn’t.”

With Jace, it’d be suffocating, the way guilt would slither cold and vindictive up the length of Alec’s spine when he’d let his eyes linger too long on the shape of Jace’s throat or the peek of his tongue between his lips, closing like a vice around Alec’s windpipe before he’d have to turn away and take a great, heaving breath. He’d feel it when Jace would smile at him and his traitorous heart would swell in his chest, even more so when he’d avert his eyes for self-preservation and spot Jace’s shoulders slump and smile fade.

He’d feel it most potently at night, where the voices of his parents and his sister and his parabatai and his tutors would rattle around his brain loud and overwhelming, their angry and disappointed faces curling out of the darkness. An ache underneath his ribs.

“You’re not good enough. Do better.” His guilt told him, possessing the stern undercurrent of his mother’s voice, the flat tone of his father, the sad glaze of his sister’s eyes and the puzzled brow of Jace.

If he was a poet, he might describe it as a great, hulking, ugly beast crouched on his shoulders until they ache, or a dog that bites at his fingers and growls and growls until he yields. It feels like something large and dark and inescapable always lingering in his peripheral vision, something that presses and presses against his breastbone until he’s short of breath and miserable with it. Guilt makes sure that Alec’s life isn’t his.

And then Magnus Bane came along.

He was beautiful, and enthralling, and bright and magnificent and every single thing that Alec could never have, and oh, the guilt presses hard against his ribcage. It’s so much worse when Jace’s face appears in that cloud in front of him at Magnus Bane’s apartment, and it’s not just guilt but shame, embarrassment, anger and it’s all white hot and overwhelming and Alec can barely think with it like a storm beneath his skin.

And then,

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Alec.”

He had dismissed it on instinct at the time, a knee-jerk reaction, _stupid_ , but later that night as he laid in the darkness, voices of Jace and Isabelle and his parents and everyone else swirling and ruminating, there was another one that cut through. It was soft, and warm.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Alec.” 

And somehow, inexplicably, the pressure eased for the first time in years.

Alec wasn’t lying when he said that his first kiss with Magnus was for himself more than anyone else. The guilt and the shame were like a vice around Alec’s very being, and when he proposed to Lydia, when he walked up to the altar and took her hands and smiled at her and ignored the sharp looks that Izzy was shooting his way – it was all a desperate attempt to stop it from suffocating him. 

But when he looked up and saw Magnus standing at the other end of the aisle, beautiful and striking against the pale blue light, dark-lined eyes wide and daring locked with his – it all suddenly melted away like the fall of a curtain. His vision was clear for the first time in years.

For a shining moment, the weight lifted from his shoulders and he felt light. So light he forgot how to breathe. So light his heart rose to the base of his throat and he could barely feel his feet against the ground as he stepped down and marched down the aisle. Light enough that he could snap at his mother without feeling a thing. 

The weight was gone, and all he could feel was Magnus’ lapels beneath his fingertips, the warmth of Magnus’ lips against his, the fire that had been simmering until now suddenly grow hot and wild and overwhelming inside of him.

Magnus had stood at the end of the aisle, eyes determined and chin held high. An offering.

_Why don’t you stop living for other people? Why don’t you stop letting others’ expectations of you rule your entire life? Why don’t you take what you want for a change?_

One kiss, and everything was pushed into a dark corner – the guilt, the shame, the unbearable weight of everyone else’s expectations – leaving something new and overwhelming and almost blinding in its beauty. Magnus had reached towards him and gracefully tugged his heart from his chest, dusted off the darkness and the misery and kept it in all its quivering vulnerability warm in his hands. Pulled him from the looming shadows of those around him and into himself, for the first time.

Magnus had kissed him, and took his hand, and the world had folded anew before his eyes. A world full of light, and love, and a world he could _change_ for the better with Magnus at his side. Alec’s universe was no longer cold, hard and menacing. It was bright and rippling, and malleable in his hands. 

Alec only had to look at Magnus – gaze at his shining yellow eyes, the beautiful curve of his jaw – and be reminded of how Magnus had stepped into his life out of a sparkling fog and changed everything. Alec felt _better_ with him: a better leader, a better Shadowhunter, a better man. With Magnus, Alec felt strong enough to take the world in his hands and sculpt it into something kinder and fairer. With Magnus, he felt strong enough to take his own life into his hands and sculpt it into something beautiful.

Which is why the guilt crushes him now more than ever before.

 

\--

 

They were both sat in the loft in the late evening, the room bathed with soft tones of yellow and orange. Music played gently over the stereo. Magnus was sat in his leather chair and Alec perched at the end of the couch, both of them seemingly absorbed in their separate books, looking to the rest of the world relaxed and peaceful and content in their companionable quiet.

But Alec knew better.

There was a faint tension in the air that Alec felt keenly, pulling his shoulders tight until they twinged and the not-quite-healed wound in the centre of his chest stung.

They were both recovering, inside and out, from Lilith’s attack and the fallout, but Alec knew that the process would be far, far longer for Magnus than it would be for him. And it was breaking him.

He had almost forgotten what it felt like – thick and suffocating around his throat, pressing against his head, behind his eyes and heavy in the pit of his stomach. It was all consuming and unbearable – it always was – but it was worse now, because it was Magnus. Because Magnus was dejected, and hurting, and empty, and it was Alec’s fault. It was Alec’s fault.

 _'Tell me how to fix this.'_ He said last time, when Magnus’ stiff look of residual fear and weariness twisted in his gut and Alec felt useless and stupid; hands (hands that almost _killed_ Magnus) bare and trembling. _'Just tell me what to do. Please._

He felt like a child again, gazing up at his mother’s stern look of disappointment towering above him and waiting desperately for his instruction to repair whatever expectation he had shattered.

But Magnus – beautiful, beloved Magnus – had simply turned to him, smile weak but genuine, and asked:

“Just hold me.”

And so he did – forehead pressed to Magnus’ temple, one arm around Magnus’ shoulders and the other clasping his hand tenderly. Holding him. Letting Magnus sag into him, and give Alec his pain to shoulder, for a little while.

And then later, cupping Magnus’ face and looking into his beautiful, tear-swollen eyes to tell him a bare-faced truth.

“There’s nothing ugly about you.”

Magnus made it easy. Magnus forgave him over and over – for snapping at him, for almost killing him, for lying to him – and little by little, Alec had begun to learn to stop wondering what he did to deserve it and simply accept it, and maybe forgive himself a little as well. 

“Why?” Alec had asked, once, hushed and husky and daring in the dark space of Magnus’ loft – sweaty and loose-limbed in Magnus’ bed after too long deprived from it and its occupant.

He didn’t say anything more than that, but Magnus’s face was slack with understanding anyway. His golden eyes glowed in the dusk, his fingers brushing against the delicate skin beneath the crease of Alec’s elbow and making him shiver.

“Because,” Magnus said, voice quiet and enveloping. “I realised that my hurt and my anger was blinding me from the truth. The truth that you made a mistake – a big one, yes – but a mistake nonetheless, and my love, don’t we all make mistakes? Mundanes, Nephilim, Downworlders – we have it in common. I guess I needed to remind myself of that.”

Magnus swallowed.

“I owe you an apology. And no, please don’t say anything. I do. I was….unnecessarily cruel. I forgive you, but I’m sorry too. I’m sorry for the way I….reacted. I’m sorry for forgetting that we’re on the same team, you and I. I’m sorry for thinking even for a second that you’d do anything to hurt me.”

But what about now?

Alec didn’t take Magnus’ magic away, but he practically led him by the hand to the one that did. He didn’t say a word when Magnus promised gravely to use every drop of his being to save Jace. He stood there and did nothing as Magnus, screaming, sunk into the fire. In the end, Alec’s blind, deeply conditioned desperation to save his brother at any cost pushed Magnus from reason and into Asmodeus’ reach, even though Magnus trusted Alec not to hurt him – to protect him. 

Loving Magnus was as integral to Alec’s being now as breathing, as sure and unchangeable as the rise of the sun in the morning. So how is it that he can’t even do that right?

Here, now, on Magnus’ couch on a sombre Brooklyn evening, Alec’s injury begins to smart and his stomach begins to clench and his breath becomes short. 

_Maybe your mother was right and your best just isn’t good enough_. A voice in his head tells him. Except this time – it isn’t Jace’s voice. It’s Magnus’. 

Magnus’ music still plays softly, warmly in the quiet space of the loft, but Alec’s ears ring and his thoughts race until he can’t hear it anymore. He can’t even feel the weight of his body against the couch anymore, nor the book against his fingertips. Instead, he feels a chill in his heart and a tightness in his gut and a million tiny pinpricks piercing his skin. He feels, acutely, the texture of his shirt against his skin – a deep blue shirt that Magnus bought him on their last trip to London – and that he doesn’t deserve to be here.

He looks across at Magnus and sees his slumped shoulders, his downcast eyes and beautiful, sad, distant expression. He sees Magnus’ empty hands which twitch minutely every now and then, and a slight smudge in his eyeliner which he can no longer magically keep immaculate.

Magnus looks up at Alec, and whatever he sees, he smiles.

“Me and Dorethea won a competition dancing to this song in the 1950s, once.” He says conversationally, as if he and Alec had been chatting the whole time. “We even won a trophy. God knows what happened to it – maybe Dot has it stored somewhere.”

He crosses his legs and folds his hands over his lap, his chin tipping upwards slightly as he smiles wider at the memory.

“Did you enter many competitions together?” Alec asks, less because he’s actually interested in knowing and more because seeing Magnus smile warms something quivering and vital within him. 

“Oh yes.” Magnus says, “I dare say at one point we were New York’s golden duo in the ballroom world. Although Dot might say I’m being presumptuous.” His smile dips slightly, and Alec feels the unsaid words sharp in the centre of his chest. 

_Things were different back then. Easier._

Alec swallows back the fresh pang of guilt and stands up suddenly, resolute. Magnus doesn’t need Alec sitting there feeling sorry for himself and ruminating over every mistake he’s ever made. Magnus needs Alec to be there for him.

Magnus gaze fixes with surprise on Alec as he steps towards him and holds a hand out.

“Teach me?” Alec asks softly. “How to dance?”

Magnus all but grins up at him as he slides his palm across Alec and grasps it, a glint in his eye that makes Alec ache as he pulls himself up and against him.

“You mean the Head of the New York Institute never learnt? A graceful creature such as yourself?” Magnus says playfully, guiding one of Alec’s hands to his shoulder as he takes Alec’s other in an elegant, elevated clasp. He puts his other hand at Alec’s waist.

“Never had reason to, I suppose.” Alec quips. He feels the warmth of Magnus hand in his and wills himself to focus on that instead of the storm cluttering the back of his thoughts.

“Yes yes, far too busy gallivanting about killing demons and saving the city.” Magnus grins and gently pushes them further into the centre of the room, before leaning back to rake his eyes hotly up and down Alec’s body. “Which is _such_ a shame.”

Alec smiles despite himself, feels his heart swell in his chest. “Well, I await your expert instruction, Mr Bane.”

Magnus eyes linger on his throat for a moment before locking his gaze with Alec’s. Alec, for the thousandth, millionth time, is struck dumb by his beauty.

“Then follow my lead, Mr Lightwood.”

Magnus guides Alec in slow, lazy circles across the living room; directing him with gentle instructions about where to move his feet and his hips, pressed close. Alec’s eyes are fixed on his feet in an effort not to step on Magnus’ toes.

It’s warm, and intimate, and the love Alec feels for Magnus in this moment – when he’s close enough to kiss and holding Alec to him like he’s something wonderful – is almost painful in its potency. Heady and all-consuming.

“Darling, it doesn’t help your form to have your head bent low towards your feet at all times.” Magnus comments, his voice laced with amusement. 

“I’m saving you from having your feet crushed by my clumsy ones, Magnus.” Alec grumbles, mostly for show, his brow furrowed. “Trust me, it’s better this way.”

“Here,” Magnus says, and momentarily takes his hand from Alec’s waist to put his fingers underneath his chin and gently push upwards until Alec’s eyes are once again level with his. “You’re a Shadowhunter, a warrior and an archer. You are instinctually balanced and in control of your body at all times, give yourself some credit.”

And to prove his point, Magnus places Alec’s hand firmly on the shoulder Alec isn't already gripping and slides both of his own hands around Alec’s back as he suddenly dips him gracefully backwards and down, one of Alec’s knees unconsciously bending to accommodate and his hands gripping Magnus’ shoulders tightly. Alec mouth parts in a short, soundless gasp, Magnus’ face close to his as he holds him in position for a moment.

“See?” Magnus says, almost a whisper. Alec feels the moist warmth of Magnus’ breath against his lips. “You’re a natural.” 

At that, Magnus tugs them both back upright, but doesn’t move his hands from Alec’s back. Instead, he guides Alec just a shade closer, eyes a liquid brown as they lock with his. Alec sees warmth and love; affection and lust in Magnus’ gaze, but underneath it all, a shimmering undercurrent of unmistakable pain and loss. Alec knows those eyes well, warlock mark or not. It’s clear as water to him. 

Alec feels it keenly, all the beautiful and awful things that Magnus is feeling – and at once, the weight of everything unspoken between them. It was like a chasm between their bodies.

Alec has just about had enough of it.

“I’m sorry.” Alec says.

Magnus’ features crease, suggestion of a confused smile lingering at the corner of his lips, as if there’s a joke he’s not quite up to speed with. “Whatever for, Alexander?”

“For everything.” He continues, trying to mask the desperation that threatens to colour his voice. “For getting you involved in this mess. For hurting you, over and over again. For asking you to save Jace, for asking so much of you, and, and letting you think for an instant that….that sacrificing so much of yourself was ever okay with me, that it was ever your _responsibility_.”

“Alexander…” Magnus murmurs, face tight. Alec shakes his head and moves to cradle Magnus’ face between his hands. 

“No.” he grits out, “I can see what it’s doing to you. I can see how much pain you’re in and I can’t _stand_ it. I can’t stand that I led you to this, when Jace is my brother and my responsibility and I should’ve saved him, I should have been better but I failed and you were the one who had to pay for it. You’re hurting, and you’re hiding it, and it’s my fault.”

Alec gasps a little, feels his fingers tremble against Magnus’ cheeks. He feels hollowed out and raw, and _incensed_ that he can feel this way when Magnus must be feeling ten, twenty times worse than that. He doesn’t deserve to be here, with Magnus’ beautiful face between his hands. He should be punching a sack until his knuckles are bleeding and numb. He should be holed up in his office with books and research and consultants until he somehow, somehow finds a way to bring Magnus’ magic back. He should be drawing up a path to Edom himself, to beg for it back or take it by force. Anything but this – in a warm space with soft music and a man who looks at him with love and forgiveness, even now.

“Alexander.” Magnus says softly, carefully, as he leans up to take Alec’s hands in his and bring them down towards his chest. “My darling Alexander, none of this is your fault, how could you ever think that?”

“But-“

“Shh.” Magnus soothes, and kisses one of Alec’s knuckles. “Now you listen to me.”

He takes a breath, rubs a thumb across the back of Alec’s hand.

“I won’t lie, losing my magic…it hurts. In a lot of different ways. It’s like losing a part of myself. I feel empty and directionless without it, and…….I need to mourn it, and get used to life without it. It’ll take time, and effort, and pain and sweat and tears. It’s upsetting, but it is what it is. If there’s anything I’ve learnt in my long life, Alexander, it’s how to deal with pain, okay? I’ll heal from this.”

But you shouldn’t have to. Alec wants to scream. He keeps his lips pressed shut instead, lets Magnus hold his hands tight and draw whatever strength he needs to say this from them.

“But no matter what, it was my choice, alright? None of this is your fault Alexander. You weren’t responsible for Lilith controlling Jace, for Jace becoming the Owl. You weren’t responsible for my father taking my magic as payment for removing Lilith’s possession. It was my decision. To save Jace’s life. To save _your_ life. I’d say it’s a fair trade, wouldn’t you?”

Alec thought then, about the ideas he had about Magnus before he met him. What he was told. People, specifically Shadowhunters, thought Magnus Bane self-centred and callous; gluttonous, cold and haughty with his years – consistent with many of his kind. It took a smile, a warm gaze and a playful introduction for Alec to know that it was all a perverse lie.

Because those who bothered to know Magnus – to actually _look_ at him behind the glitter and colour and the dazzle of ancient power – knew that Magnus was selfless and warm and protective. Loving, with a heart that bled and bled with how much he cared, how much he tried to do right by the people who were important to him. He thought nothing of giving half of himself to save the life of another, because that’s simply who Magnus was. 

_‘You’ll blow up the very ground you stand on to make something right.’_ Magnus told Alec once, and maybe that was true, but the truth was that Alec still fumbled and stumbled in his strenuous pursuit of righteousness. He had two decades of prejudice and falsity to overcome; a lifetime of moving almost entirely in the wrong direction. He was still impulsive, and self-destructive, and wrong enough times that it tore at his heart every time.

Magnus didn’t stumble. He did what he knew was right – without hesitation and without protest – and marched forward even if it left him bleeding. He didn’t have to think twice.

Alec should fall to his knees before him – this immortal man of love and power and justice – who gave so much of his life to making the world a shade lighter, a shade kinder, when the years at his back should have taught him to turn away and protect himself instead. This beautiful, divine being who somehow loved Alec, and somehow felt compelled to curl his powerful hands in protection around his shoulders and the shoulders of those Alec loved. 

Hands that tremble with their emptiness, now.

Alec takes his hands from Magnus’ grip and curves them around Magnus’ warm neck.

“I love you.” He says fiercely. Even if it doesn’t fix anything, even if does Magnus more harm than good, sometimes; he needs to remind him. Needs him to know that he doesn’t have to suffer and bleed alone anymore. Alec will be there – to care for and kiss him, to worship him like the virtuous deity he is – hoping against hope that it may balm some of the wounds that Alec’s fumbling love carve into his skin. “And thank you. Thank you for saving us, but please don’t think for a second that you have to deal with this alone. Not for a second. And I promise you I will do everything in my power to fix this.”

Magnus smiles, and tears swell in his eyes as he cups one hand around the back of Alec’s neck and presses Alec’s forehead to his.

“When things get crazy, huh?” Magnus whispers. It sounds like a call to prayer.

“When things get crazy.” Alec echoes, and kisses him. Clutches his face and kisses him and kisses him, until both their faces are wet with tears and warm with love.

Alec doesn’t understand why Magnus loves him. He doesn’t understand how a man as beautiful and blinding as him could love a lowly, failing child such as Alec. Alec knows that Magnus’ life would be easier if Clary Fairchild hadn’t somehow pushed them into each other’s path, and it’s times like this – when Magnus is hurting – that he is reminded of that, and it claws at him. 

But he’s selfish. With Magnus like this, warm in his arms, clutching at Alec and kissing his mouth like he’s something vital, something precious, Alec doesn’t want to understand. Right here, right now, Alec takes the riches Magnus offers him and decides not to think about it, hopes distantly that Magnus gets the same nourishment from Alec’s lips that Alec gets simply when Magnus enters a room. Hopes Magnus feels as whole as he does when Magnus touches him. Hopes that Magnus doesn’t grow to regret this.

Maybe they’re a collision of two beings from opposite worlds, destined to either destroy every piece of each other or bloom something new and beautiful. Maybe Alec doesn’t deserve Magnus. Or maybe they’re just two men who somehow find comfort in each other in the dark, who make the world a gentler place for one another.

It doesn’t matter. Right now, Alec will be whoever Magnus needs him to be.

Magnus draws back, eyes half closed and a smile playing across his lips. He brushes the tip of his nose against Alec’s.

“You’re all I need.” Magnus whispers, a confession, and as if he can see into Alec’s thoughts. It makes Alec’s throat ache. He wraps his arms around Alec’s neck. “Dance with me, my love.”

And so Alec does. They sway together, and Alec presses Magnus to him and pretends, for a bit, that nothing exists outside this room. There’s no demons, no magic, no fighting or pain or loss. Just Alec and Magnus, holding each other in soft light and comfort.

Guilt is a powerful force. But so is love: and with Magnus, Alec has enough of it to conquer heaven and hell and everything in between.

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this before the 3B trailer came out, hence why the dancing scene is decidedly different to the one that was teased. 
> 
> I truly think that Alec Lightwood is a beautifully complicated character, and I wish they explored that a little bit more in the show, especially in regards to his mental health and inevitable emotional upheaval that he must experience considering the way he's been treated throughout his life. Here is a glimpse of my perspective on that.
> 
> This will be part of the my series on 3B scenes I would like to see, which I'm going to try and finish before the first episode of 3B airs!
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at [magnsbxne](http://arthurdent.co.vu).
> 
> Thank you for reading - kudos and comments make my entire day, if not my entire week!!


End file.
